One Man’s Terrorism is Another Man’s Sabotage

In Section on Friday, Alex asked about if the ANC during apartheid should be considered a terrorist group. The class sort of glossed over that question, but I thought it was a really interesting one that I did not address then but want to address now. In another class, it was suggested that we refer to terrorists as “nonstate actors” because the term, terrorist, has become too ideologically charged / sensationalized by the media (an idea that is probably not uncommon to most of you). At the time I disagreed because I felt like calling a group that targets citizens “nonstate actors” really takes away from what the group is doing. But the question about the ANC really turns all of this on its head. The group that ultimately undertook the “terrorism” (Spear of the Nation) was started by Nelson Mandela. In his book Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela makes it painstakingly clear that his group’s aim was to undertake acts of sabotage, not terrorism/warfare and to minimize civilian casualties. Mandela was not staging assaults on daycare centers or shopping malls, but he started a group that ultimately killed civilians (most of this went on after Mandela was arrested and jailed). Is Nelson Mandela, one of South Africa's, and the world’s, most venerated political figures, champion of freedom and civil rights, and Nobel Peace Prize winner, a terrorist? To steal from a class definition, “‘terrorism’ means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.” If that’s the United States government’s definition, it seems like he could be (although the number of civilian deaths while Mandela was in charge of the group is up for debate). However, the term “civilian targets” implies that civilians have been targeted, not killed unintentionally. For this reason, it makes me uncomfortable to think of Nelson Mandela as a terrorist or even the founder of a terrorist group, especially since the regime he was reacting to was so undeniably unjust. I just wanted to point out the difficulty of defining/profiling a terrorist and challenge the generally held idea that terrorism can impact a group’s legitimacy as during apartheid, the international community condemned the South African government. Then, was Spear of the Nation a sort of "just terrorist" group? There is a sense of a just cause for their actions, the right intentions, the use of violence as a last resort, and a sense of proportionality, discrimination, and utility that gave Spear of the Nation a sense of legitimacy that other groups lack. The idea of just terrorism is frightening as it seems like many groups could use this rationale to legitimize unnecessary civilian deaths, but also an interesting way to consider how the concepts of terrorism and terrorist are framed.